A methodology for protocol design and specification based on an extended state transition model

A lot of effort is being dedicated world-wide to defining Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocol standards and tools for formally describing them. However, little work is done in developing methods for applying these tools to the development of new protocols. This paper presents such a methodology based on OSI and software engineering principles. It provides general guidelines for designing protocols based on an extended state transition formal description technique (FDT). It emphasizes a systematic, analytical and algorithmic approach to achieve completeness of protocol specification during the protocol design process. Its possible application to the development of OSI protocol standards is discussed and suggested for study by the standards community.